Christian Science Monitor

10/06/04

Here's the US government's bottom line: No, Iraq didn't have significant stockpiles of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons at the time of the US-led invasion last spring. But the concept of weapons of mass destruction was important to Saddam Hussein. Mr. Hussein personally believes that WMDs saved his skin twice -- first, when he used chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, and second, when their threat helped halt US troops short of Baghdad in the Persian Gulf War. And what Hussein wants, Hussein tries to get, says the final report of the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group. His country may have been boxed in by international sanctions, and he may have been delusional about its resources, but he himself represented a sort of WMD-in-waiting, eager to reconstitute his weapons programs in time...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1007/p01s04-usgn.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp